New Venues Coming to CityWalk at Universal Orlando

Over the past month, Universal has filed several new demolition/building permits with the City of Orlando for the renovation of three CityWalk venues. Project 294 was the first project filed on June 12th. It called for:

Interior remodel of existing venue in Space 294 in City Walk

After doing some digging, we discovered that Space 294 is currently home to the Pastamoré Market Café. Reading some of the permit review comments has revealed that the venue will likely be replaced by a new pizza restaurant, likely called “Woodfire Pizza” according to one comment:

The next project filed was Project 102 on June 28th. This project consists of:

Demolition of interior and exterior construction in existing venue in space 102 in City Walk

Space 102 is currently home to the Latin Quarter restaurant. According to the comments, this permit is for demolition only, so there isn’t any indication of what type of venue is coming just yet, but there have been previous rumors about it closing in August to be replaced by a new Mexican Restaurant, so this permit at least confirms half of that story.

The final new project is named “PRJ IOA STARBUCKS 208”. It calls for:

Interior and exterior demolition of an existing venue in space 208 in CityWalk.

This permit is a bit interesting because it clearly calls for the renovation of Space 208 in CityWalk, which is currently home to Starbucks, but also makes mention of IOA. The addition of IOA to the project name could easily be a typo on the City of Orlando’s end, but it could also mean that this permit is the first half of plans to move the Starbucks into IOA. Given its awkward location on the second level of CityWalk, it would make sense to open one in Islands of Adventure, perhaps in Port of Entry, to take advantage of the early opening crowds heading to the Wizarding World. A recent report from Screamscape cites plans to move Starbucks to the lower level of CityWalk, replacing the current Endangered Species store, so that could be another possibility. Like with Project 102, this permit seems to be for demolition only, so there aren’t any hints as to what’s going to fill this space just yet.

These new permits, combined with the reports from Screamscape about various other CityWalk changes and the WWE Hall of Fame/Restaurant rumor seem to point to a pretty decent sized overhaul of CityWalk that could breathe new life into the entertainment district.